1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a backup/recovery technique for a computer system, and more particularly to a method for protecting a computer system with a backup/recovery system.
2. Description of Prior Art
The protection for the computer system is an important issue for a computer user at present. Chain mails for the spread of virus by way of Internet are increasingly overabundance in virtue of vigorous development of network. Modern people get used to E-mails (electronic mails) as the connecting interface between human beings. Afterwards, they often receive greetings and messages sent out from others, as well as the annoying spam. Further, it is impossible to guard against viruses smuggled by concealing in between the mails.
Computer viruses are buried or hidden in another program. Once the program is executed, the virus is activated and attaches itself to other programs in the system. Nowadays, viruses are frequently spread by the smuggling with files in a predetermined form, such as *.EXE, *.DOC, and *.ZIP form attached to the e-mails. When the user is ignorant of what happened and operates the attached files, the computer will be affected by poison. Viruses will send themselves to the entire mailing list of the users' record of communication. If the users relax their vigilance and operate the virus-smuggled files, there will be a chain-infected reaction that causes the disaster worldwide.
Moreover, for the PC (personal computer) users, they will risk interconnecting of computers into networks. If the viruses infects the users' computers, viruses usually destroy the files throughout the disks and all computer files may be deleted that lose the essential data in the twinkling of an eye and cause the computer system operation out of order. If files in the operating system have been infected and destroyed, the operating system, such as Windows, cannot be rebooted. The more serious effect is that the computer system needs to be setup again. Hence, there is a need for eliminating viruses from computers and networks.
Conventionally, a used backup/recovery software, although having the backup/recovery function, it is capable of executing the backup program for backing up data, also of executing the recovery program for restoring the data to the hard disk (HD), in order to protect the HD with the function of returning to a normal state. Nevertheless, not only the HD is not thoroughly protected, but also the backup/recovery operation always wastes the user lots of time.
For instance, the conventional backup/recovery software, such as the Ghost software developed by Symantec Corporation, needs the network administrator to operate the operating system (OS) before he/she manually operates a backup/recovery program. The Ghost software includes a backup program to back up all data stored in selected partition/hard disk to a file. In addition, it further includes a recovery program to restore the data from the file to the selected partition/hard disk. Prior to backing up the data, the Ghost software stops all other tasks in the computer. All running applications are closed before the backup procedure. It then creates the backup file, with the backed-up data, in a single task procedure. This backup procedure takes about 8 minutes per Gigabyte, in general. Since the Ghost software backs up all the valid data stored in the hard disk, the data itself backed up by the Ghost software occupies an extremely large space in the hard disk. All data provided currently used by the file system of the operating system (OS) will be backed up into the backup file, nevertheless whether such related data has been changed or not in the past, thereby occupying a great amount of space in the hard disk.
Further, some presently available backup/recovery software, such as the Goback software developed by Adaptec Corporation, operates its recovery program without the need of operating the operating system (OS) in advance. While initiating a recovery operation, the Goback software recoveries the hard disk to a selected status. When the computer system is destroyed, the operation of restoring the hard disk also needs the network administrator to implement the recovery program manually.
Obviously, when the computer system is surfing the web or receiving electronic mails by the user, the virus could be easily infect the user's hard disks. The virus will then break out that causes the accidental damage of the computer system. Moreover, if the virus is successful, the computer cannot be booted from either the hard disk or the floppy. Nevertheless, the conventional backup/recovery software is unable to effectively distinguish the possible danger of receiving data from the Internet, not to mention the fact that it is incapable of backing up data promptly.
Conversely, various conventional devices have been proposed for the detection of virus intrusions on the computer system. For example, the InterScan VirusWall developed by Trend Micro Corporation, it provides Internet gateway protection against viruses and malicious code. The detection is for all SMTP, HTTP, and FTP Internet traffic at the gateway and blocks malicious mobile code at the gateway. It can be configured to respond to virus detection and security violation incidents in three ways, such as alerts the system administrator, just deletes the infected file or permits the user to download the file under certain controlled conditions, optionally isolates the infected file for later treatment.
The previous anti-virus software may provide Internet real-time virus detection during surfing the web and blockage of viruses included with electronic mails, however, the backup/recovery technique is not available in such anti-virus software. This result in harm of the hard disk for a computer system, in a situation of the undefined viruses. As described above, the anti-virus software cannot back up and/orrecover data in the hard disk. Hence, in case of contingency, the computer system is destroyed, the disks cannot return to the normal state. The demand of real-time backup/recovery for the user cannot be served well.
Accordingly, because of the presently anti-virus software doesn't contain backup/recovery function and current backup/recovery software products cannot recognize the possible danger of receiving data from the Internet to protect the computer system, there is a need in the art to provide a backup/recovery software for protecting a computer system much more efficiently.
The present invention overcomes the limitations and shortcomings of the prior art with systems and methods for protecting a computer system with files automatically backed up to the data storage device, such as a hard disk prior to downloading data to the end-users' computers. It will be appreciated that the system and method of the present invention may provide computer system protection from viruses introduced by data downloaded from the largely unregulated network.